


The Cost of Doing Business

by MulticoloredRose



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, M/M, Mass Effect 1, Mind Meld, Multi, OT3, pre-Virmire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 11:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21319426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MulticoloredRose/pseuds/MulticoloredRose
Summary: The melding of minds had been necessary, but the unforeseen complications that came afterwards were hell.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Ashley Williams, Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Male Shepard/Ashley Williams, Male Shepard/Ashley Williams
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	The Cost of Doing Business

**Author's Note:**

> Just another story in my OT3 Mass Effect world. Have fun!

She should have known better. Goddess, what had she been thinking? It had all seemed so harmless, so necessary. Shepard was ill equipped to deal with the Prothean data buried in his mind and they were running out of time. They couldn’t risk missing Saren because they’d been chasing empty leads because of a map the Commander couldn’t understand. It had been necessary to step in at that.

It had been necessary.

Those four words seem to be on repeat in Liara’s mind, ever since the meeting and embracing Shepard’s mind with hers in order to learn the information stored within. It had been hard to resist. Even ignoring her fascination with the Commander himself, this was _Prothean_ data. All right there, waiting for her to come in and make sense of it for them all. How could she have resisted?

She should have been upfront about the whole thing, but she hadn’t been, and now here she was – with more information bouncing about her head then just the Prothean data.

She should have told Shepard the risks. The inherent nature of melding, especially with one so young and untried in it. Shiala might have been able to impart knowledge into Shepard’s mind but the commando asari was at least two centuries older than Liara and with plenty of experience touching and experiencing another’s mind. Benezia wouldn’t have chosen her to touch the Thorian’s mind otherwise. Liara though…Liara didn’t have that finesse. She’ll learn it someday, through time and practice, but for now she has to live with the consequences of her actions.

Consequences that seem almost unbearable.

Being rejected by Shepard had been hard. It had been the first time that Liara had really put herself out there, reached out to another for companionship. Sure, she’d been approached by others before, by many others, but they’d never caught her attention. Now she can say that she’s experienced the horrible feeling of dismay at not one but two potential partners turning away her affections, and in such a short time between them.

She’d told herself that she would get over the Commander. Sure, there was this…pull that seemed to tug at her whenever he came into the room. A kind of circling orbit that Liara hadn’t yet figured out how to escape from – and she’d told herself that she’d get over Kaidan too. The brunet biotic had been nothing but kind to her, had done nothing but make sure that she was comfortable and cared for; and yet, friendship seemed to be the only thing that he sought from her too.

Another. There was another, they had both said; and a small part of Liara hated them for it.

Finding out that their ‘another’ was in fact the same woman had been eye opening at first, but it wasn’t until Liara joined minds with the Commander that she fully had her eyes opened to what was really going on. And now, she would forever regret her carelessness in touching the Commander’s mind, because now she could feel him inside of her. A small part of him, of his consciousness bouncing around inside her skull, trying to find a place to burrow itself. Liara had thought that would be something she would want – with Shepard’s mind came Prothean information…but she hadn’t considered the cost of it coming with something else.

Like how Kaidan looked, utterly relaxed, reclining on their bed and laughing so joyously at something Ashley had said. Like how that dangerous and challenging smirk on Ashley’s face never failed to make Shepard’s heart race. Or how Ashley liked to take command, bossing around the two superior officers much to their amusement and shared pleasure, or how Kaidan looked when they pushed him to his limits, head tossed back, biting his lip with his eyes scrunched closed and the soft flickers of biotics running across his body.

Like how Ashley read Tennyson aloud softly as she ran her fingers through Shepard’s hair, lulling him to sleep; or how Kaidan’s eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled at them, so soft and fond every single time. Of Ashley’s dangerous mood before coffee or Kaidan’s wayward hair in the morning.

Like how she knows now that Ashley’s a prankster and Kaidan hums musicals when he’s distracted. Or how Shepard and Kaidan have both agreed that Ashley is never allowed to choose pizza toppings ever again after she put double pineapple and chicken on it much to their horror. How Kaidan and Ashley both teamed up and dragged Shepard out of the driver’s seat of the Mako after their first experience with him driving it, vowing to never let him behind the wheel again least they all die.

Like how Liara now knows that Ashley likes old radio programs that tell detective stories and Kaidan likes smooth jazz. Or that Ashley can quote every line from Blasto complete with the accent and that Kaidan can play piano and speaks French in such a way as to lead the other two to distraction.

That Ashley likes to curse when she loses control, sometimes making Kaidan and Shepard laugh with her original and colorful phrases, and how Kaidan will slip and beg them in several languages when they finally wrestle that iron control from him like their own personal Rosetta Stone in the flesh.

She knows that Shepard likes to tell them that Ashley is the heart and Kaidan is the logic because they like to think of themselves like that; but that he knows nothing is further from the truth. Ashley is their rock, their solid foundation whose stern judgement they trust and Kaidan is the soft blanket that wraps them up after a hard day.

She knows that Shepard has thought about permanently requisitioning their contracts to the Normandy so that they’ll never be far and that they’ve all talked to each other’s parents – and goddess how Shepard misses his parents in those moments because they’ll never get to see him land on his feet and how he’s truly happy – and how they’ve already planned Thanksgiving with the Williams and Christmas with the Alenko’s.

He already knows what he’s getting both of them as gifts.

It’s these memories that intertwine with the Prothean data in Shepard’s mind and now they’re inside Liara’s as well and they _burn_. When she sees them pass each other in the hallways, the slight brush of the backs of their hands as they go – it hurts. When she’s sitting at the mess table and watching Kaidan wrestle with the main circuitry node on the med deck it torments her. She can see them laughing, relaxing, gasping, smiling, and all in all being in love and she’s stuck on the outside, a perpetual voyeur of the three of them for the rest of her life.

She should have known better, because for the first time she can say – the Prothean data wasn’t worth this hell.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and kudo!


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